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HOPE FOR OUR COUNTRY. 



A SERMON 



■West, Tvmi HJtei. aCMx. 



PREACHED IN THE SOUTH CHURCH, SALEM 



OCTOBER 19, 1862, 



REY. ISRAEL E. DWINELL 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



Prmted by Charles W. Swasey, No. 27 Washington Street. 
1863. 



HOPE FOR OUR COUNTRY. 



Ezek. XX, 36 — 38. " Like as I pleaded with your fathers in 
the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith 
the Lord Grod. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and 
I will bring you into the bond of the covenant : and I will purge out 
from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me." 



God chose the Jews for a great mission, and 
remembered the object and the covenant ; and when 
they were unfaithful, pleaded with them, cliastised 
them, and brought them back. This continued through 
many successive generations and centuries. He 
passed them, fathers and sons, as they needed it, 
" under the rod," and brought them " into the bond 
of the covenant.'' The motive was mercy, love ; 
hence the scourging was not for destruction but cor- 
rection. The passing " under the rod" was to bring 
*' into the bond of the covenant." 

May we not hope this is so in the case of our Coun- 
try ? May we not believe it ? God is certainly 
pleading with us, and causing us to " pass under the 
rod : " may we not believe, are there not good reasons 
to believe, that it is not to destroy us, but to bring 
us into covenant-bonds with him ? 



I am not one of the desponding and foreboding 
prophets. I can see light beyond, and I think through 
this darkness. I do not believe we are going to swift 
ruin. I believe that . we are condng up, and have 
been, steadily, for the last two years ; and that hereaf- 
ter this crisis and bloody agony will mark one of the 
brightest turning-points of our national history. And 
I think it is well, in these days of darkness, when the 
newspapers chronicle barren movements of our armies, 
or daring raids of the enemy, or repeat the standing 
announcement, "All quiet along the Potomac," and 
when old advertisements, week after week, fill the 
places where we eagerly look for flaming capitals 
announcing great victories, — to inspirit our confidence 
by looking at the moral elements, the permanent princi- 
ples and facts of the contest. I have more faith in 
principles, in virtues, in ideas, in right and justice, 
more faith in God as upholding and ftivoring these, 
than I have in the varying fortunes of armies and 
navies. And when, for the time, the prospects from 
the latter look dark, or not specially hopeful and 
encouraging, I do not despair of the former, nor 
through them of the ultimate triumph of the cause of 
the Republic. 

Let me, then, give some of the reasons I have for 
Cheerfulness and Hope in relation to the Future of our 
Country. 

The fundamental encouragement comes from the 
fact that God reigns, and reigns in the interest of his 
kingdom. The destiny of the nations is in his hands, 
and he is engaged in building up a kingdom of right- 
eousness and peace. How can we believe, therefore, 



that he designs ultimately to give this land up to 
anarchy and desolation? It cannot be. The final 
state of this country will be one of prosperity and 
blessing, though there is nothing in this consideration 
alone, to show that there may not be long and waste- 
ful agony before it is reached. The glorious future 
is sure, because God reigns, and reigns for that fu- 
ture ; and because he reigns for that, I believe he 
will help us into it as soon and as fast as we are 
prepared for it, — in any event, sometime ; and be- 
cause he reigns for that, also, this present trouble is 
one step in his providence towards it. This is the 
ground of my confidence. 

I also derive encouragement from the analogy of 
political changes and events elsewhere in modern times. 
They suggest the thought that God, having spent 
former ages in the elementary lessons and preparations 
of christian civilization, is now simply employing 
political changes to bring the nations more directly 
into it. He seems to have abandoned the former 
circuitous method, and to have adopted a more speedy 
one. Nearly all the great modern convulsions have 
resulted in the signal and immediate advantage of 
Christianity. The English war with China was in 
fact but a hideous and ugly phantom, going before 
Christianity, leveling down Chinese walls, and letting 
in the Gospel, to make trial of the swarthy, unspirit- 
ual millions. The war in India was as remarkable for 
christianizing the previous essentially pagan policy of 
the English, in the government of that country, as for 
hastening the downfall of the waning pagan religions 



6 

themselves; so that the religious prospects of that pop- 
ulous country were never before so bright as on the 
day when that war closed. In like manner, the 
cannon of the French and English in the Crimean 
war were no more effective in destroying the Russian 
fleet, or in battering the Redan and Malakoff, than 
in shattering Turkish prejudices, and opening the 
empire of the Moslems to the gospel of Christ. The 
revolutionary changes in Italy, also, have unchained 
the Bible, loosed the missionary from his dungeon, and 
let a free and pure Christianity out into the open air 
and the light of the sun. May we not believe that 
these facts reveal God's present method ? that he has 
no need now, in modern times, after all the discipline 
of his providence, and all his preparations, to continue 
the circuitous process, but can make political changes 
direct steps in the advancement of his kingdom ? And 
may we not think that he is doing here what he has 
been doing elsewhere, — preparing some signal good 
for us, — leading us by a " short cut " into some great 
blessing ? 

I have also a measure of hope from the strength of 
the vital bands which bind modern civilized society 
together. The dependence of the individual on socie- 
ty, in a state of high civilization, for happiness 
and comfort even, is complete — far greater than in 
savage or half civilized life. The savage can get 
along without his fellows ; not so the civilized man, 
in these times of the division of labor and mutual 
dependence. Hence the strongest and ultimately the 
governing instincts of modern society are towards law 



and order, stable government, peace and good will 
towards man. The interlacing fibres of society are 
now strong ; and when other wants or passions rend 
them for a time, they speedily become quiet again, 
and quiet produces soundness and health. Accord- 
ingly in countries which have been swept over by 
successful revolutions, the vital interests of the people 
have experienced only a temporary injury. All the 
vital and essential institutions have outlived the shock. 
Forms have changed, but substances remained. The 
inner life of the people is the same, and the things 
they hold most dear, though their outward relations 
are altered. All the good, in government, which their 
civic worth entitles them to, they retain, or speedily 
regain. Thus a revolution in France is but a ripple 
on the surface. The national spirit, institutions, and 
essential forms and methods of intercourse, business, 
and law, flow on the same, substantially, under King, 
Constituent Assembly, Consul, Emperor, King again, 
Emperor once more, and then King, and then Presi- 
dent, and finally Emperor. France survives Revo- 
lutions, never but for a moment sinking below her own 
moral and spiritual level, never but for a moment 
rising above it. Revolutions in France are like the 
winds which sweep over her, not materially touching 
her, though for the time causing her forests and har- 
vests to bow before them. 

I am apprehensive, however, of no such outward 
change in our government. Not at all. But if 
there should be some slight modification of our 
political system, as the result of the present war — 
as there may be ; and even if there should be a 



8 

great and radical modification — which I do not be- 
lieve there will be, — there is not the slightest 
probability that the under-life of the nation would 
be disturbed. We should continue to be just 
what we are, to live just as we do live, and to 
have all the blessings we now have, essentially ; — 
all the blessings our mental and moral worth entitles 
us to have. We have no occasion, even if the worst 
phantom of political change, which has risen before 
any feverish brain, should prove a reality, to despair 
of the future. And this hope I build, you remember, 
on the inherent vitality and indestructibleness, the 
immortality you may call it, of modem civilized soci- 
ety, which enables it to pass through the furnace of 
revolutions without even the permanent smell of fire 
upon it. 

But I have special reason for hope in reference to 
the future of our country on account of the character 
of our people. They are generally intelligent, under- 
stand their interest, think for themselves, and are 
under the power of no corrupt and designing leaders ; 
and what is far more, there is a great amount of solid 
political virtue and patriotism among them. We love 
money, indeed ; are selfish ; sometimes forget country 
in party ; often have strong sectional prejudices ; are 
not a little influenced by personal favoritism ; and 
many are corrupt all through ; yet I believe there is 
not another nation in which there is so much civic 
worth) both in mind and heart. Let the emergency 
come, to test principle, as it is coming, and it will 
not be wanting. Our people are not the material for 



9 

despots to lord it over ; for corrupt men to use ; for 
some ambitious general to ride, into a dictatorship ; 
for politicians to sell ; for office-seekers to seduce to 
partisan issues, when Liberty is at stake. They are 
not the stuff for a Robespierre, nor a Dr. Francia, nor 
a Napoleon I. or III., nor a Cromwell even. Nor are 
they the men to consume one another in anarchy, or 
to play the part of the Mexican. I have confidence 
in their essential civic worth ; and hence I have con- 
fidence in the future of the Republic. They are not 
the men that will see it destroyed, or their rights and 
freedom wrested from them, or this country given over 
to wicked and corrupt government. The essentials of 
good government are here, in the minds and hearts of 
the people, and in their stout arms ; and such a gov- 
ernment they will have, — and such a government is 
one like that we have now. I do not fear lest it will 
in some way be destroyed by the present shock of 
arms. It will live, in its essential integrity. It is 
grounded in too many loving souls and brains and 
muscles, all over the land, to totter and fall in our 
day, or our children's day. Almost every person you 
see is a living pillar of it, holding it up with every 
pledge of influence, property, and life. The excep- 
tions are not worth the mentioning. Despair not, my 
friends, of the Republic, till this race of Americans is 
no more. 

I am confirmed in this estimate by the grand spec- 
tacle now before our eyes, of the uprising of more than 
a million armed men^ to defend our " altars and 
hearths," and save our country. This shows that I 

(3) 



10 

have not overestimated the civic worth and mettle of 
our people. The present is a pledge and prophecy of 
the future. I look upon this uprising of the loyal 
population, and their enthusiastic and stupendous 
movements, civil and military, in favor of free and 
popular government, for the last eighteen months, 
with awe and pride. We, in the midst of the scenes, 
see instances of poor generalship, incompetency, blun- 
dering, speculation, fraud, cowardice, treachery — 
something of the infinite waste and demoralization 
incident to war ; — but time will cover up these blem- 
ishes of the sublime and beautiful picture, and bring 
out in vivid colors the Patriotism, the Heroism, the 
Enthusiasm, the Self-sacrifice, the Civic Glory ; and 
fifty years hence I should not be afraid to compare the 
last eighteen months with the other golden eras of 
history. 

But I have another ground of hope for our land. 
This is a christian land, not by the courtesy of classi- 
fication, but more ; there is, compared with any other 
people, a large percentage oi really godly and praying 
persons in it. They supply the spiritual conditions of 
vitality and continuance, and these are the most im- 
portant and influential of any. We have no reason 
to indulge in spiritual pride. Rather we have reason, 
before God, for confession and humiliation, in view of 
many and great sins, individual, social, and national. 
Yet you may always give yourself the benefit of the 
truth; and the truth is, this is a land — as lands 
go — of real piety aud devotion. From this fact 
I derive a double encouragement:— i^m/, the prin- 



11 

ciple comes in, that God will spare the place for 
the sake of the fifty ^ forty, twenty, ten righteous in 
it, — a fact, doubtless, which has kept many a semi- 
Sodom from destruction ; and second, we have the 
independent power and efficacy of their prayers, 
pleading for our Country. Christians in themselves, 
silent and alone, are "the salt of the earth;" and 
praying christians have power with God and prevail, 
and christians all over the loyal states are praying to 
God to save and bless us. 

Again, I derive comfort in remembering that our 
fathers, in founding our institutions and civil system, 
covenanted with God. They dedicated this land to 
him. Their object was a religious one, their aim to 
honor him ; and they entered into covenant-bonds 
with him, for themselves and those who should live 
after them. It was a mutual transaction. Their sig- 
nature was affixed in legible human characters ; his 
in the favoring providences that followed. Thus their 
sons, our institutions, and the Republic itself, were all 
born into the bonds of the covenant. Many of the 
sons have themselves recognized and re-ratified the 
covenant ; feel that this is God's land, these are 
God's imperiled institutions ; and plead with a cove- 
nant-keeping God, to interpose and save his own. I 
do not believe that God will disown us, that he will 
forget the covenant with the fathers and the sons, that 
he will cast off his inheritance. No, no ; rather, 
though we have strayed from him often and in many 
ways, I seem to hear him saying : " Like as I pleaded 
with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of 



12 

Egypt, so will I plead with you. And I will cause 
you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the 
bond of the covenant ; and I will purge out from among 
you the rebels, and them that transgress against me.'' 

Moreover, it strengthens my hopefulness to reflect 
on the kind of our civilization and institutions. With 
one sad exception, which must be borne in mind, our 
civil system represents the highest light of modern 
times. It is the embodiment of the best ideas of civil 
government of the Nineteenth Century. We had the 
advantage in this country of starting into national be- 
ing but a short time ago, adopting the wisdom of the Old 
world, engrafting it in the New, and repudiating the 
follies and evils. We have no hereditary wrongs. — 
You must take along with you the exception. — We 
have no obsolete and burdensome customs. Society 
here is not stratified in fixed, unsympathizing, 
jealous classes. Government is not lodged, in whole 
or in part, in the hands of a permanent or hereditary 
family, clique, party, or interest. No union of State 
and Church arrests the freedom of ecclesiastical life, 
or vitiates the purity of individual and public religion. 
There is the freest possible scope and incentive for 
manhood, — the manhood, whatever it is, much or little, 
of every citizen. Surely the elements and possibilities 
of human progress and a rich nationality — of some 
solid contribution to the cause of humanity, exist here, 
if anywhere. And it seems to me that the world — 
and I say it knowing the danger and the sin of pre- 
sumption, but I say it not as an American, but more, 
a man regarding the interests of the whole race, — 



13 

that the world cannot afford to spare us. But this 
is a dangerous point, and I leave it. This at least is 
safe : unless there is some other good reason for our 
destruction, God certainly will not destroy us because 
our country has so many elements of hope and promise. 
Other things being equal, this is in our favor. 

I am also encouraged from this consideration : we 
are in the midst of an unfinished experiment of a new 
kind of government. There has never before been a 
trial of a Free Representative government, a govern- 
ment of Popular Rights and Duties, among a large 
Christian people ; — and such a government more nearly 
corresponds with the intimations in Scripture of the 
Divine choice, than any other. Some such system will 
doubtless be the final or millenial form, when all 
shall be " kings and priests unto God." Now, Chris- 
tian nations have made full trial of other kinds of 
government, — Absolute, Centralized, Monarchical, Ar- 
istocratic, Confederate. They have little more to 
learn about their worth or capabilities. They have 
measured their capacity. No new lessons of any value 
can be taken from them. It is not so in reference to 
a large Christian Republic. The trial of this, so nearly 
coincident with the Divine idea, is reserved for the 
last. The experiment is novel. And if it should be 
arrested here, who would think it had been fairly tried ? 
who would not say the world has something yet to 
learn about Self-Government ? who, in coming ages, 
would not wish America back to finish her mission ? 

Now, we can not say that God may not remove a 
nation — ^just as he sometimes removes individuals — 



14 

which, to human view, seems more promising and 
hopeful than any other at the time. He has done it, 
in at least two instances; — when the Jews, a nation 
with the Bible and divine ordinances, were overcome 
by Pagan Rome, and their nationality perished out- 
wardly ; and when, several centuries later, this same 
Roman Empire, but now christianized and, alone of 
the nations, having the gospel in trust, was vanquished 
by the Pagan tribes of the North. But in both these 
cases there was this peculiarity : they had obviously 
fulfilled their mission. They had been raised up to 
prepare a certain legacy for the future ; they had 
prepared it ; and it was found that they could hand 
it over to mankind in a purer and better condition by 
their demise as nations, than by their continuance. 
Hence they perished ; and the race without obstruc- 
tion entered into their labors, and a comparatively 
dead religion, in both cases, lost its civil support, and 
thus was the revival of a purer and living religion 
made ultimately possible and easy. 

Our mission as a nation, on the contrary, seems 
still immature. If we stop here, we have wrought 
out no valuable ideas. We leave no legacy to the 
world, but, as it were, of the failure of a legacy, — a 
work begun but unfinished, — a lesson of confused 
meaning. We teach it nothing about the value or 
worthlessness of Free Institutions. And the very 
thing for which God seems to have raised us up, and 
given us a place among the nations, is unaccom- 
plished. I do not believe that this will be. We 
shall finish our work. We shall teach mankind 
some positive and decisive lesson about this novel 



15 

and yet christian idea of a State. The new 
and the last experiment of government will not pass 
away as a spectre which men witness and then dis- 
pute about, not agreeing concerning its form, move- 
ments, or objects. God will not remove so great 
and powerful a nation, for which he has done so 
much, till it has fulfilled its mission, and made a 
definite mark on the world's destiny. 

I augur well for our country, also, because I be- 
lieve this is the last great str^uggle of slavery, and 
God has appointed us to meet and vanquish it for all 
coming time. There are many things which lead me 
to think that slavery is now mustering its forces for 
a final conflict. In ancient times, it rested its claims 
on the right of conquest, of the stronger, of force ; 
then on civil Avelfare and the advantage of the upper 
classes ; still later, and in modern times, on unavoid- 
able but reluctant necessity, and the welfare of the 
slave ; now, on inherent Right, Christianity, the Bi- 
ble, — on every obligation sacred and profane, on earth 
and in heaven ! It employs, you perceive, the final 
arguments. It can invent none higher, none lower. 
It can wield no greater lies. It can use no more 
reckless or defiant logic, no more presumptuous or 
blasphemous rhetoric. It has also exhausted legis- 
lation in its behalf, and state-craft, and diplomacy. 
And at this moment it is staking for it all its wealth, 
resources, and population, in an unheard of rebel- 
lion and bloody civil war. Surely these are the 
characteristics and elements of a final struggle. It is 
mustering now more resources of all kinds than it 



16 

can ever summon into the field again ; and if it fails 
here and now, the death-knell of slavery will vir- 
tually be sounded in our world. 

If this is so, will God suffer us, the chosen cham- 
pion against it, to perish ? Will he appoint us to 
represent His interests in this deadly issue, and then 
permit us to fail ? I do not believe it. If we fall, 
what will be the end of the heaven-djiring and blas- 
phemous sm? Who, in all this world — we may, in 
the light of recent events, now well ask — can or 
will grapple with it ? 

And, once more, I am greatly encouraged because 
we are beginning to put ourselves right in reference 
to this very issue. The cause of the war is clearly 
slavery ; and we tried for a long time — the govern- 
ment, generals, the army, the people — to fight the 
war, and save the sin ; and God would not suffer it. 
Gradvially, but rapidly, he has converted us to the 
ways and demands of righteousness and humanity. 
And now the Proclamation of the President puts us 
right. Now we are openly and directly on the side 
of God ; and now we may hope to have his favor. 
It is not often that in great civil commotions moral 
principles are brought into such direct conflict, as 
they now are here. They usually are mixed and 
confused with other influences and considerations. 
I cannot doubt, therefore, if we are true to our pres- 
ent promise, on which side God will lend his aid. I 
believe that, as he has permitted the conflict to 
come upon us because of slavery, suffering it to 
make one final stupendous rally with all its argu- 



17 

ments and forces, and as we have now decided to 
accept the issue, as one between Light and Dark- 
ness, Christianity and Barbarism, face to face, he will 
enable us to crush it, once for all, for the good of our 
country and the world, and to survive the conflict. 
Our right moral position, now proclaimed by the 
President, sustained by our armies and patriotic toils 
and sacrifices, and divinely quickened by our prayers 
and pleadings, taken in contrast with the infamous 
moral position of the rebels, is in itself, when we re- 
member that a God of Justice reigns, a host, and 
should encourage the most desponding heart. I did 
not despair of the Republic before ; for I saw that 
the issue was virtually one between Freedom and 
slavery ; but now that this issue is officially recog- 
nized on our side, as well as on the other, and that 
hereafter our policy will be directly in the interests 
of Freedom, I am sanguine and exultant. We are 
now, on this point and so far, clearly with God, and 
I believe God will be with us. 

These are some of the things which make me 
hopeful and confident in regard to the future of our 
country. I have dwelt only on considerations aris- 
ing from peculiarities on our side. When I contrast 
these, however, with those on the other side, 1 am 
much more sanguine. It seems to me that there 
was hardly ever in the history of the world, consid- 
ering the light of the Nineteenth Century, a less 
promising candidate for the favor of Heaven, than 
the Southern Rebellion. I concede daring, energ}-, 
an unexpected fertility — a certain unnatural and 

(5) 



18 

Satanic kind of desperation and reckless furor. I con- 
cede good generalship, a large army, and many 
successes. I concede a mean and low sympathy in 
England and on the continent, among the classes 
jealous of America. But the foul and wicked origin 
of the candidate, his avowed principles and objects, 
his blasphemous assumptions and arguments, his 
appearance on the stage as the armed and bloody 
champion of the Middle Ages and Barbarism, his 
malignant assault on the application of the great 
ideas of Freedom and Equality, Justice and Human- 
ity, which are the glory of modern times, — these 
things will ultimately, I imagine, procure for him 
small favor with the Arbiter of the destiny of nations. 
When, therefore, I look at our side, and see the 
noble moral elements in the objects for which we 
fight, and then cast my eyes Southward, and con- 
trast with them the shameless and untimely immo- 
ralities contended for on the other side, I can not 
believe, — no, never, never, — that this is the time 
when God will overthrow Freedom and the ideas 
of Right and Humanity he has been slowly working 
out into practice for thousands of years, and inau- 
gurate the Evangel of Slavery, the satanic creed 
of Despotism and Selfishness. 

Let us, then, my friends, fellow-countrymen, not 
despond, nor doubt ; nay, let us take courage and 
hope. Let us lean on God and the great principles 
of Truth and Righteousness. Let us be true to the 
ideas and issues involved in this contest, and 
entrusted to us, and we can not fail, — God will never 



19 

let us ; and we shall freely contribute our substance, 
freely surrender fathers and sons and brothers, and 
freely give ourselves, as duty may call, — and not 
feel that the sacrifice is thrown away and wasted, or 
that the price is too great. We need to look above 
the anxious and changing aspects of the contest, 
and stay ourselves on the reigning God of Justice, 
and the sublime Ideas and Merits of our Cause, and 
only look below to see and do our Duty. 

Let us then hold up our faces where the light 
from Above may fall on them, and be reflected 
around us, and no longer carry them downward 
where earthly mists and exhalations darken them, 
and thus use us in diffusing and increasing the 
gloom. And as we thus become strong within, let 
those around us, let the Cause, let our Country have 
the benefit of it. Let us bear our part of the 
troubles of the times with firm hearts ; quicken 
and encourage one another ; and give the Govern- 
ment, our brave men in the field, and all in ear- 
nest in suppressing the Eebellion, the advantage of 
a cheerful and hopeful spirit, warm sympathy, and 
effectual support and devotion. Thus shall we be 
serene, peaceful, hopeful, confident, and in the end 
successful. 

God hasten it in his time. 



54 W 












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